The telecommunications industry has seen a trend towards convergence of previously disparate technologies. For example, networks originally developed for analog voice traffic are being used for data communication and networks developed for data transfer are being employed to provide for voice communication. This is evident in the development of voice-over-IP (VoIP) technology that provides for voice communications over a packet-based network, such as the Internet.
The security of communications has also become more important; in particular, the confidentiality of voice communications. In traditional data networks, security and confidentiality may be provided at the Internet Protocol (IP) or network layer, or the TCP/UDP or transport layer. Typical protocols used to provide for network level data security include IPSec. Typical protocols used to provide transport level data security include Secure Sockets Layer (SSL). Unfortunately, these protocols require significant processing power and introduce significant delay in the context of VoIP technology. They typically require a lengthy set-up and key negotiation that causes delays unacceptable to a VoIP user. Moreover, the processing power necessary to perform the set-up and encryption key algorithms to implement these methods within a VoIP handset necessitates increasing the speed of the processor and capabilities of the handset, which drives up its cost.
These typical network level encryption protocols were designed for encrypting large packetized blocks of data. The smaller blocks and serial data streams associated with some VoIP technology mean that these protocols may result in more overhead than data in a transmission and/or significant delays as the system waits to accumulate sufficient buffered data before sending a transmission. This introduction of overhead and delays adversely affects the voice quality.
Known systems for encryption fail to adequately manage streamed data and smaller block size data and result in quality of enjoyment and quality of service problems in the context of VoIP.
Accordingly, a need continues to exist for a method and system that addresses shortcomings of known methods and systems.